Balta1701

You need someone to answer the phones while you're searching for a new GM. I'll complain about things like that after a search is done, not before.

Tuesday, August 22nd, 2023. Just writing that down so I don't forget.

FWIW, it appears that Nashville is not exclusively covered by any one team. In terms of blackout restrictions, it is considered within the range of both Atlanta and Cincinnati. That could make it more difficult for either team to claim that they were losing part of their market if any team moved to Nashville (including future expansion). https://www.sportingnews.com/us/mlb/news/mlb-blackout-restrictions-map-2023-baseball-games/m843wsljyvrrdmf50zjhusre

https://www.mlb.com/news/rob-manfred-outlines-next-ballpark-steps-for-a-s Nashville is pretty darn far from Atlanta, its a 4 hour drive, so I'm a little skeptical about this being the major impediment others think.

We recently had a much more relevant example of a team moving much closer to another team's market, with Baltimore having to accept the move of the Nationals to Washington, which was explicitly within the television market area assigned to the Orioles. That still happened.

I don't dispute Chicago being massively bigger, and you can count whatever you want in that, but if a team was making the case to move out of there - Chicago already has a team that is much more liked by the city as a whole. There is a decent case that Chicago's market is well served by the better franchise and that the second team could grow the sport's fanbase as a whole if it moved elsewhere. If a different city put up a serious stadium offer, it's going to be considered.

Because it's the White Sox and all pitchers must be moved to the bullpen.

Yes, I don't understand that. A quick check gives the Oklahoma City metropolitan area as 1.4 million people, a similar check gives Nashville at 2 million people. In general, I find the suggestion that 1.4 million is 50% higher than 2 million to be something I do not understand. Nashville also has other moderately sized urban areas somewhat nearby (2.5 hours drive time or less) in Memphis, Knoxville, and Louisville, - the largest city in that range of OKC other than Dallas (which has its own team) seems to be Tulsa which is smaller than Memphis and Wichita, which is less than half the size of Louisville and smaller than Knoxville. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_metropolitan_area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashville_metropolitan_area

I literally have no idea what your mathematical relationship there means. Only cities that are way too small get teams, not mid-sized cities? There are 2 basic ingredients that I think are required for a team to truly make a move like this. First, you need a long-running stadium issue - with things hitting the papers now, and the expiration of an unbelievably team friendly deal, we're set up to have that by the end of the decade. Seattle had this. Oakland had this. The second is ownership who is motivated to pick one city over another. In Seattle's case, the team was sold to an ownership group that was motivated to move them. In Oakland's case, ownership clearly wanted out of there and turned down a generally fair deal. This is certainly possible in the case of the White Sox, an out-of-state group purchasing them is one way this could go down. If the White Sox were to stay in the hands of the Reinsdorf group, then it will come down to stadium deal quality. As I keep saying, the last deal the White Sox got was so ungodly team friendly that no one in the state of Illinois will ever sign off on the like again. Frankly, they shouldn't, it's now well understood how bad these deals are for taxpayers and Illinois has long term financial issues they have to consider. That is where another city could come in, should they be motivated to make this happen. I don't know whether that will be the case in 2030, but it's possible - if Illinois demands something of an equal deal, with a large portion of a new stadium paid for by the team, and another city offers a stadium that is largely publicly financed, that might make up for the difference in metro area size in the eyes of ownership, but it is an open question whether such a deal will be available.

I will bet you that no matter how this goes, in 2050 you'll still hear about the nightmare that was the upper deck at New Comiskey/USCellular/Guaranteed Rate field.

Regardless of what else happens I do expect this to drag through one or two single year extensions. The ballpark will still be usable in 2031 and movement won’t happen until there is actually a threat of one side or the other walking away. I think the biggest issue however remains the deal from last time. The terms that the White Sox got were so obscene, so incredibly team friendly that even in 1 year extensions, the political side will want some of those clauses to go away. This will not only motivate things to happen as a deadline approaches, it will likely complicate things next time because if the White Sox try to use the last deal as a starting point, the political side will politely leave the room. Compared to the last deal, the White Sox will have to make serious concessions that cost them money. That may potentially poison the well in negotiations and it will make them fully consider relocation options.

Or the SuperSonics moving somewhere tiny in the middle of no where like Oklahoma City.

Ventura originally signed a 3 year deal. He did an excellent job in 2012, perhaps the best coaching job I’ve seen by a White Sox coach. They looked crisp and practiced. Things I have never seen a white Sox team do, like hitting a cutoff man reliably or knowing how to execute a rundown properly, they did them all well. This was the only reason other than Sale and Quintana that they remained competitive that year. Apparently management wanted to extend him at that point, but Ventura said no since Hahn was new, he wanted to make sure they were comfortable working together for a season first. 2013 was one of the worst coaching jobs I’ve ever seen. They came out of spring training looking like they’d never practiced a fielding drill. I spent half the season posting the “circus music” because it summed up their play on defense. There was a day in May where he had them all out on the field before a game doing spring training fielding drills, probably because Ventura slept through spring training so they forgot to do them. They sold a few players at the deadline and wound up 63-99, drafting third. Then Hahn gave Ventura his 3 year extension. Im not sure he woke up until Sale was using scissors. It was probably a good nap.

You left out Hahn watching a 63 win season and then immediately extending Ventura afterwards. I believe they finished in 4th place the next 3 seasons.

What happened to the guy they got from Houston, shouldn’t he have been off the IL and up a while ago?

I think it’s my fault. On Friday I literally wrote “this is an easy article for someone to write”. If this writer is a member here, he could have called up Riefert and bam, easy article.

I do think the city and state will offer a few carrots because it doesn't look good to move a team, but it will be dramatically less than what they gave him with the last deal. If he doesn't accept that he will be paying a whole lot more to the city and state...well...

If there's a bright side, it's becoming increasingly difficult for them to use a low BABIP to say "oh sure Toussaint will be a successful part of our 2024 competitive rotation"

So, was I the impetus for this article or has it been in the works for a while?

Clearly it's the big league bullpen. I mean, that's probably the plan anyway, so performance isn't going to change things.

The only people on Earth who would say otherwise are likely to be the people being interviewed by Reinsdorf.

Julio is on an 8 game hitting streak and is hitting .625 over that stretch. He is hitting .412 in August with a 1.103 OPS, with 22 RBI in 18 games.

https://x.com/lockedonorioles/status/1693587584780271802?s=46&t=IHGvMKQvXHaTI5ypbpIKjg Anyone other than me able to get Embeds to work? Orioles owner John Angelo’s had a long rant about how there would be no way for him to afford to keep all their young talent around. Also the Orioles want a clubhouse dog. https://x.com/oriolesfanryan/status/1693620910115201526?s=46&t=IHGvMKQvXHaTI5ypbpIKjg